“Believe it or not, there was a time when people needed to be convinced that the internet would matter. In 1995, when web browsers were first becoming commercialized, I had the opportunity to tell the real estate industry that the internet was going to change the way business was done. That turned out to be true.”
Industry Crossroads™ is built on the belief that the residential real estate industry benefits when informed professionals are willing to think critically, challenge assumptions, and engage respectfully with competing idea. Our goal is not simply to report events, but to elevate the conversation.
The fear most frequently expressed is that AI will replace real estate agents. Yet the evidence suggests otherwise. Buyers and sellers continue to rely on professional representation in overwhelming numbers. AI has proven highly effective at automating repetitive tasks but it has not replaced the judgment required to negotiate, advise, and successfully close a transaction. The more revealing question is not whether AI replaces agents. It is whether AI changes the position where value is created within the real estate ecosystem.
The Settlement here does not overlap with any of the existing home seller settlements. Rather, this Settlement resolves the legal claims of homebuyers who were not included in the home seller settlement
Today, a listing is no longer simply a property record. It is the industry’s most valuable business asset. Whoever controls the listing controls consumer relationships, lead generation, advertising opportunities, artificial intelligence training data, and billions of dollars in downstream services
Together they crystallize the central question facing the industry: should a residential listing belong first to the open MLS marketplace, or first to the brokerage that signed the seller? The answer will reshape how listings flow, where consumers find homes, which businesses capture the revenue, and what the Multiple Listing Service exists to do
What used to be a cooperative system is fragmenting into competing strategies—portals seeking consumer attention, brokers defending inventory, and agents working to secure direct, contractual relationships with buyers.
“MLS Router™ has fundamentally changed how we think about MLS data. It’s no longer just about distributing feeds. It’s about governance, transparency, and creating new revenue opportunities in a way that scales. For the first time, we can measure usage, manage licensing, and monetize data through a single operating system.”
“The next real estate disruption isn’t technology — it’s regulation of who controls the data.”
The MLS is built for cooperation among professionals representing sellers and buyers. Can the MLS service both subscribers?
That’s a complex question that requires awareness of a number of topics as shown by the Nomenclature list below, as well as from articles appearing in The Data Advocate (TDA).
More importantly, brokerages should review their training programs to caution agents regarding what can be said and what should be avoided in advising buyers as to steps in the loan process – in short, what are the RED FLAGS.
The risk here isn’t just lost revenue, it’s the loss of relevance. When unauthorized “grey market” entities provide easier access to your data than you do, they become the primary source of truth in the eyes of the industry. To protect the exclusivity and value of an MLS membership, boards must transition from passive data providers to active Data Custodians
Most importantly, it reframes the association as a value provider rather than a gatekeeper. This is not theory or advocacy. It is operational evidence from one of the longest-running Open MLS environments in the United States
As the CEO of the San Diego MLS, Saul was quick to respond with the fact that MLSs should be looking for alternative ways to showcase the value of the MLS. He explores the concept of flipping the current subscription-based business model and finding opportunities to monetize the data and bring benefits back to the providers of the data.
if you are not retaining emails and texts in a centralized, supervised system, let’s make 2026 the year that gets corrected. Pronto.
If an advertisement or promotional material described in paragraph (1) is posted on an internet website over which the real estate broker or salesperson, or person acting on their behalf, has control, they shall include the unaltered version of the images from which the digitally altered images were created in the posting
If you are looking for a well-written, informative, and easy to read book on AI, purchase a copy of Kevin’s classic book for yourself or as a last minute holiday gift for friend or client. And subscribe to the Free Subscription for the REAL AI newsletter. Also check out other articles on The Data Advocate under the Data/AI category.
The one stage of the litigation that we haven’t covered is the DISCOVERY Stage – It’s the fun part where you get to see all the juicy facts that have been conjecture up to this point, but now the facts are presented in detail and made under oath.
In practice, it’s hard to reason about the “purpose” of a product as broad as ChatGPT, or the “purpose” of the entire internet. A better framing is: do the market harms from ChatGPT come from it producing substitutes that compete with the originals? Or is it an indirect effect, like a book critic review could have on a book?
Unlike generic commercial property platforms, Occupi is designed specifically for retail real estate, including shopping centers, high streets, mixed-use assets, and retail destinations. The platform addresses a longstanding industry challenge: the lack of a singular global operating system that connects retailers and landlords efficiently across borders.
The findings from San Francisco show that on-MLS listings consistently outperform off-MLS transactions in both sale price and transparency metrics.
we thought you might like the following update of major real estate lawsuits and trends impacting the residential real estate landscape. Here’s a list of relevant titles to review.
Whatever the resolution, the case is poised to reshape how online real estate platforms compete—and cooperate—in the years ahead.
The Compass acquisition of Anywhere could be a “Big Deal” for Associations, MLSs, and other brokerage models.
That same mindset—the gardener’s patience, the musician’s persistence—is what I carry into my teaching, my writing, my work with real estate professionals. The through line is always cultivation: time, care, presence. It’s something I won’t give up.
After more than 15 years of visionary leadership, Merri Jo Cowen, CEO of Stellar MLS, announced she will step down from her role in Q1 2026.
Consumers want speed and convenience, yes. But they also want someone who understands their needs. The “why” behind the documents and decisions. The “how” behind the execution.
The mid-1990s marked a monumental turning point with the conceptualization of putting real estate listings on the “worldwide web.” Saul Klein, acting as a consultant for the National Association of Realtors (NAR), was a central figure in this ambitious endeavor.
If as an industry, we took the same time and effort we dedicate to debating Clear Cooperation and instead directed it at influencing lawmakers to solve the genuine problem of housing supply – the communities we serve would be immeasurably better off – and so would we. It is time we shift the conversation – and fix what’s actually broken.
Real estate isn’t a game, but it is a profession grounded in credibility and a belief in fairness. And right now, the Department of Justice is making one thing clear—competition in the industry isn’t just a value; it’s a legal imperative. Whether through antitrust litigation, scrutiny of cooperative compensation, or the push for open access to listing data, the message is the same: if consumers don’t have real choices, the system isn’t working.
The Compass v. NWMLS lawsuit is a pivotal moment in the real estate industry’s evolution, pitting a self-proclaimed disruptor against a powerful, broker-owned MLS. Compass’s allegations of monopoly power, anti-competitive rules, suppressed innovation, and consumer harm strike at the heart of how real estate markets operate.
“We need to get back to fundamentals and understand that the foundation [of the MLS system] is solid and doesn’t need to be replaced. It just needs to be modernized and built on
Roger P. Alford will serve as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Mr. Alford previously served in the first Trump Administration as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division, including as an expert witness in the landmark 2023 real estate $1.8 billion litigation against the National Association of Realtors
Brokerages, MLSs, portals, and NAR — every player has skin in this exclusivity game. It’s not about who’s right anymore. It’s about who controls the narrative. And unless we speak up, unless we protect the public trust, we’re going to wake up one day in a marketplace that’s more about lead ownership than homeownership.
Here’s some basic research designed to help those of us who mostly practice real estate in the primary market, to learn more about the ongoing convergence into the secondary mortgage market.
While we’ll be looking at the increasing number of lawsuits centering around the Three-Way Agreement issue, it is worth keeping a close eye on the reaction of local associations to challenges voiced by some of its members to lessening the costs for services they don’t consider essential to their business.
The most difficult questions focused on why the DOJ took the position that the written buyer agreements required to show a property were possibly an antitrust violation.
This practice does not benefit buyers, who must foot the bill through higher home purchase prices, regardless of the extent or quality of their brokers’ services or whether they would have otherwise been willing to pay for those services at all.
By focusing on these three pillars of data quality, MLS data can be transformed from a simple repository of property listings into a strategic asset that drives better decision-making and enhances outcomes for all parties involved.
The competition has always been fierce among seller agents to create listing presentations in order to secure the sacred listing. However, there was little competition among those wanting to represent buyers, other than the inevitable procuring cause disputes between brokers who provided specific services to the unrepresented buyer.
A Paradigm Shift also creates a huge advantage to “first market movers.”
First-party data monetization is expected to expand, potentially driving a new era for the MLS industry—often referred to as “MLS 6.0,” where data will become a primary revenue driver.
Expect intense competition to occur among brokers fighting to earn the exclusive representation agreement on the buyside, just like listing brokers always had to sharpen their presentation skills to win the exclusive listing contracts on the sellside.
We agree with the attorney’s expectation of a DOJ intervention. And I’ll add our prediction that we will hear from the DOJ by the end of October. Webase that prediction on signals from the DOJ in a series of pleadings and actions over the past 4 years and before,
If we we can package that data up and sell it to other people who might be interested in it in the secondary market, like the capital markets, then we generate enough revenue to where we could compensate the true content providers – the brokers and agents.
The report details four key strategies needed to revitalize cities and downtowns to ensure they remain vibrant and engaging.
The challenge is no longer simply deciding how listings should be shared.
It is preserving consumer trust while the rules of cooperation, competition, and innovation continue to evolve.
That broker responsibility formula is the pressure point, and it is about to be tested by the largest brokerage in the country. If a company with tens of thousands of agents concludes that it is paying association dues for licensees who have chosen not to be members, and can point to a $20 alternative it already funds, the conversation with local leadership changes character quickly. The association is no longer selling a benefit. It is defending an invoice.
Private marketing probably does help when a home is unusual, expensive, and hard to price, and when the likely buyers are few and reachable through agents. Broad public exposure probably does help when the home is ordinary and there are many possible buyers, because competition is what drives the price up.
That explains why brokerages want greater control before MLS entry, why portals insist on broad consumer access, and why MLSs find themselves caught in the middle.
On June 15, 2026, MLex reported that Stanley Woodward, the Associate Attorney General, has been placed in charge of running the Department of Justice Antitrust Division. The step matters because of who Woodward is and how he reached it. It matters more because the division he now controls has spent the better part of a decade as the principal federal antitrust threat to organized real estate.
REALTOR .com was the number one, most visited real estate portal in the world for first 11 years of its existence. — On TBT post (Throw Back Thursday)
The competition has always been fierce among seller agents to create listing presentations in order to secure the sacred listing. However, there was little competition among those wanting to represent buyers, other than the inevitable procuring cause disputes between brokers who provided specific services to the unrepresented buyer.
The Language of Real Estate – Learning Real Estate One Word (or phrase) at a Time… AAA tenant AAA tenant typically refers to a tenant
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